OFFSTAGE: Toby Keith Takes Daughter to the Studio

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

Remember on the CMT Music Awards back in 2004 when Toby Keith and his daughter, Krystal, belted out “Mockingbird,” the old song that’s been recorded by everyone from Aretha Franklin to James Taylor and Carly Simon? I do, and I remember looking forward to hearing more from Krystal. So here we are more than six years later, and it looks like the elder Keith is ready to make new music for his daughter. “She sang all her life, of course. But getting in the studio, she was a little anxious. She sang her butt off today,” Keith told CMT Radio of their first day in the studio when she recently signed with his label, Show Dog-Universal Music. “I’ve never worked in the studio with her very much. When we did ‘Mockingbird,’ I wasn’t there for when she laid her vocals down.” And maybe because she is his own flesh and blood, he isn’t shy about his high expectations. “Unfairly, I’m probably a little harder on her,” he said. “But the other artists came in and I said, ‘I won’t step in too much until you guys ask me to.’ And with her it’s like she wants me to take the lead on it.”